Technology

I love Linux. I have it installed on 3 machines, have been using it for over 3 years, and would install it right away if I ever got a new computer.

A couple weeks ago, I was feeling pretty exhausted and just wanted to play a game thru Proton on my laptop. I got it running, but it was unplayable because it was using my integrated GPU instead of my discrete one. I spent the night switching compositors, cables, and drivers, but none of it fixed the issue.

The next day, feeling exhausted from fruitless debugging, I tried to launch another game via Proton that I knew had worked in the past, but it crashed on launch. I spent the whole day going thru the same steps I did the day before, but also consulting ProtonDB and trying software that would force usage of the dgpu.

The next day, I installed Windows 10 to an external hard drive and spent the day debloating it. Drivers got installed automatically, I downloaded both games on Steam, and they just worked. So I guess I now dual-boot Windows just for the games that don't work thru Proton. Loading game worlds and booting up take ~75% longer, but that's to be expected because it's running on a 4 year old HDD connected over a USB cable.

As mentioned earlier, I love Linux a lot, and if all games had native binaries or Proton worked 100% I'd format that god-forsaken hard drive. But when real life has got me down, I don't need Linux to get me down further. I don't like Windows, and I feel incredibly dirty whenever I press F7 on boot to get to Windows. But when my choices are "spend 8 hours on fruitless quest to get >2fps" and "press play button", I'm going to take the path of least resistance.

I work in a linux shop.

You couldn't pay me to use Windows for development, sysadmin, backend services, etc.

But on the desktop? Hell no. We maintain a modern debian desktop environment for our users, and it's a pain in the ass. Mediocre UX, mediocre integration of mixed-bag third-party apps, and too many workarounds and gotchas you need to Just Know About. I just don't have the energy.

I use windows at home, and for my underlying work environment - and I just SSH into linux boxes for the actual tappy-tappy stuff.

#GleefulCompliance

You can use Rufus to install windows 11 and bypass the requirements. It does everything for you -- downloads the latest win 11 service pack, removes the blocking requirements, and you can even tell it to automatically disable all of the telemetry and phoning home. You'll still need a license key when you install, or run it on a machine that was running a valid win 10 install previously. But I'm running win 11 on an 8 year old PC with zero issues.

Here is a good guide that explains in detail.

My PC doesn't hit the requirements for windows 11. Yet it kept asking me to update. Been running Ubuntu ever since

Yeah but can it run signed drm in a way that the owner of the computer can't read the keys? Checkmate atheists.

Yep. Gaming is starting to work on Linux, so I will move to Linux once Microsoft cancels 10.

11 has nothing more than more telemetry and tracking going for it. Gaming is slower, so why would I upgrade for a worse experience.

I play old games still anyways. Linux is more secure than Windows 11 anyways. I won't upgrade to 11, and turned off TPM in BIOS so 11 won't automatically install.

The article is typical clickbait from the Express, that's bottom of the barrel trash.

I worked for a large computer company in the late 90s, early 2000s. When XP came out, they said there would be no site licensing. This meant we had to keep track of license keys for thousands upon thousands of systems, costing millions. This was before KMS or anything.

"Nothing we can do," Microsoft said. "We have no gate key."

Our server farms at the time were 40% Windows NT 4, 55% Sun systems, and 5% Linux. So we said, "okay," and called Red Hat. In a year, our back end was 60% Sun, 35% Linux, and 5% Windows NT. We were already in talks to start switching to Linux workstations for desktops.

"Oh, you mean this gate key," said Microsoft.

Asshats. They lost our server business, but let us use XP with a site license.

Not having security patches on a system you do things like go to your banking website on is actually a pretty big deal, and I don't think it should be dismissed lightly. Also AV is mostly snake oil, and is in no way an adequate substitute for a properly patched OS.

Old games are likely to work better, as new games are likely to use new features or behaviour which aren't yet handled properly by Wine/Proton.

Runs great in Linux Mint